The invention relates to the field of non-battery operated electric lamps, particularly portable lamps or flashlights having a spring wound up by hand operation.
Existing hand-powered flashlights have a dynamo which is driven by a wind-up spring motor through a transmission gearing. These flashlights do not have assemblies that function to restrain and conserve spring bias prior to full relief of the spring motor whereby repeated winding up of the spring motor is necessary for continuous operation of the flashlight.
J. Speck in U.S. Pat. No. 3,099,402 discloses a dynamo which feeds electric current to a bulb and charges a storage battery simultaneously. During operation of the dynamo the storage battery is charged whereby after the spring motor has run off, the operation of the flashlight bulb is maintained by the battery. However, use of a battery to supply power to operate the bulb is economically and environmentally undesirable.
The invention comprises a portable hand-operated utility flashlight having a generally rectangular shaped housing with a top carrying handle. A cranking lever is rotatably mounted on the housing and connected to drive means rotatable to wind up a spring. The spring is connected to a gear train which is connected to a generator. Upon release of spring bias the gear train moves whereby an electrical current is generated by the generator to energize the light-emitting assembly, such as a light-emitting diode. The drive means has a vertical gear having ratchet teeth cooperating with teeth of a vertical gear mate to provide a one-way drive assembly. A center-pivoted lever is moveable into engagement with the vertical gear mate to selectively prevent release of spring bias and thereby conserve spring bias.